Crux’s interview with Christopher Hale is revealing, but not in the way they likely intended.
Hale is presented as a kind of standard-bearer for a resurgent “Catholic left,” a corrective to the growing influence of the Catholic right. Yet anyone who follows him on X knows his output is not careful analysis or faithful argument, but a steady stream of ideologically driven assertions, selective facts, and at times demonstrably false claims, all in service of a political narrative imported wholesale from secular progressivism.
So what is Crux trying to achieve here?
It appears less like journalism and more like manufacturing symmetry. Faced with the reality that orthodox Catholic voices have grown in confidence and visibility, Crux seems determined to construct a counter-weight, even if that counter-weight lacks intellectual seriousness, theological depth, or fidelity to the Church’s moral tradition.
The problem isn’t that Crux interviewed someone from the left. The problem is that the interview largely suspends critical scrutiny. Hale’s framing is accepted at face value, his claims left unchallenged, his self-description treated as evidence. Readers are not helped to discern truth; they are simply invited to observe a narrative being asserted.
This is how Catholic media quietly shifts from reporting the life of the Church to curating acceptable opinion. Orthodoxy is treated as a political faction, while dissent is rebranded as balance.
If Crux wants to cover internal Catholic debates honestly, it should apply the same scepticism to progressive activists that it routinely applies to traditional Catholics. Otherwise, it risks becoming not a window into the Church, but a mirror reflecting the ideological anxieties of its editors.
Catholic journalism should illuminate reality, not compensate for it.
Mark Lambert @sitsio on Twitter/X
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